Megan West(erby) 2
Reading Pattern Recognition is a great experience on many levels. While it divided some of the Gibson faithful who missed the futuristic setting and the cyberpunk attitude of his other novels (oh, fanboys!), it’s also one of the few novels I’ve read that really got into the heart on how technology and the Internet really shape people’s emotional lives and experience, not to mention grappled intelligently with a post-9/11 landscape. (It’s also awesome when a dude in a kind of dudecentric genre like sci-fi writes really incredible female characters that are defined by their abilities, intellect and emotional lives rather than by their plot convenience and exploited sexuality. William Gibson, you effin’ rock. You are so important to me!) But Pattern Recognition on this totally other level is kind of like a stealth fashion bible, an education into how you could piece together a kind of anti-style, how to look at it, where to get it. And in the irony of ironies, the novel that is in some part about the virulence of marketing has definitely spawned its own cult. Definitely for awhile after reading Pattern Recognition, I’d see an exquisitely minimal outfit on someone and think “That is so Cayce Pollard!” Or I’d think to myself, “I need a Cayce Pollard day” after a fashion bender. Cayce Pollard became part of the mix of influences that I brought with me when I shopped or confronted my closet for an outfit to wear each day, and sometimes I really wish she was real, ‘cause it’d be super-cool to interview her and find out what perfume she would wear and what her spirit animal is. (My guess: an owl.) (via NOGOODFORME.COM: Style Icon: Cayce Pollard from William Gibson’s “Pattern Recognition”) They absolutely nailed my reaction to this book and to Cayce.

Reading Pattern Recognition is a great experience on many levels. While it divided some of the Gibson faithful who missed the futuristic setting and the cyberpunk attitude of his other novels (oh, fanboys!), it’s also one of the few novels I’ve read that really got into the heart on how technology and the Internet really shape people’s emotional lives and experience, not to mention grappled intelligently with a post-9/11 landscape. (It’s also awesome when a dude in a kind of dudecentric genre like sci-fi writes really incredible female characters that are defined by their abilities, intellect and emotional lives rather than by their plot convenience and exploited sexuality. William Gibson, you effin’ rock. You are so important to me!)

But Pattern Recognition on this totally other level is kind of like a stealth fashion bible, an education into how you could piece together a kind of anti-style, how to look at it, where to get it. And in the irony of ironies, the novel that is in some part about the virulence of marketing has definitely spawned its own cult. Definitely for awhile after reading Pattern Recognition, I’d see an exquisitely minimal outfit on someone and think “That is so Cayce Pollard!” Or I’d think to myself, “I need a Cayce Pollard day” after a fashion bender. Cayce Pollard became part of the mix of influences that I brought with me when I shopped or confronted my closet for an outfit to wear each day, and sometimes I really wish she was real, ‘cause it’d be super-cool to interview her and find out what perfume she would wear and what her spirit animal is. (My guess: an owl.)

(via NOGOODFORME.COM: Style Icon: Cayce Pollard from William Gibson’s “Pattern Recognition”)

They absolutely nailed my reaction to this book and to Cayce.

27 May 2009 ·

2 notes

  1. almostwinner reblogged this from meganwest
  2. meganwest posted this

About Me

Megan gets paid to create stuff on the internet. She is just as surprised about that as you are.

She lives other places online, too.

Latest Tweets

I Follow

Copyright © Theme created by